ERKELENZ (dpa-AFX) - North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) has come to the defense of the police against accusations of disproportionate use of force at Saturday's anti-coal demonstration near Lützerath. The police had worked "highly professionally," Reul said Sunday evening on the ARD talk show "Anne Will."

He said he would have every case of inappropriate police violence investigated. "We've seen one or two films on the net where we say, "This doesn't look good." We'll take a close look at that, we've also filed criminal charges there as a precaution, because I think that has to be checked. That's what I've always done the last few years, and that's what's going to be done now."

But it was not as if there had been masses of "wild-eyed policemen" at the demo. He would have liked the organizers of the demo to clearly distance themselves from violence, but that did not happen.

Climate activist Luisa Neubauer disagreed, accusing the police in the broadcast of a disproportionately violent operation. "This did not look professional in any way," she criticized. Neubauer pointed out that according to a paramedic of the protesters, many people had been seriously injured by the police. The protest, however, had been peaceful. The demonstration had been directed against the demolition of the village of Lützerath west of Cologne and the mining of the coal underneath.

On the fringes of the large demonstration, according to police, around 1000 largely masked "disruptors" had attempted to enter the cordoned-off area of Lützerath. The police used water cannons, batons and pepper spray against them. Twelve people were arrested or taken into custody. According to police, nine activists were taken to hospital by ambulance. A spokeswoman for the demonstrators' medical service had said, however, that a "high double-digit to triple-digit number" of participants had been injured.

According to the assessment of the police union (GdP), the evacuation went largely as expected. However, the weather conditions with continuous rain and deep mud had made the operation difficult, said Andreas Roßkopf, chairman of the GdP district federal police, the German press agency. For him, it was incomprehensible that peaceful participants had not managed to "distance themselves from the violent participants." This made it difficult for the police to "intervene appropriately here. Overall, the forces acted with prudence and "the necessary sense of proportion.

On Sunday, the police completed the evacuation of the protest village of Lützerath at the Rhenish open-cast lignite mine, except for two activists in a tunnel. "There are no more activists in the village site of Lützerath," police said. Most of the buildings had already been demolished on Sunday - including the farm of the last farmer of Lützerath. When the two activists in the tunnel can be taken out was still unclear on Sunday, according to RWE. The plant fire department has taken over the action described as "rescue".

The police said in the evening that the total of 35 "tree structures" and nearly 30 wooden structures in Lützerath had also been cleared. Nearly 300 people had been removed from Lützerath, with four acts of resistance. Since the beginning of the eviction, 154 preliminary proceedings had been initiated. More than 70 policemen and policewomen had been injured since the beginning of the eviction operation. However, a spokesman had said on Sunday that the injuries were only partly due to violence by protesters.

RWE expects the demolition of Lützerath to be completed soon. It is expected that the dismantling will take another eight to ten days, a spokesman told the "Rheinische Post" (Monday). "In March or April, the open pit could then reach the former village and excavate it." Until the end of the dismantling, the police want to remain on site./sku/DP/zb